The Attributes of Jesus

[HKHaugan]

When we consider the nature of humanity we look at the specifics of being human. One cannot but see the obvious personal context in which everything exists. We are self-conscious persons, individuals, unique in being an ‘I am.’ We have distinct personalities with emotions, intellect and spirit that blend in a physical body. The very air we breathe keeps alive the mind and heart of a body in which a spiritually identifiable person exists. The human quest is to be a recognizable, productive, relational and self-fulfilled ‘I am’ lasting forever.

All of this is elementary to our understanding. When we observe the broader context of living in the world, there is a hunger for who and what is behind it all. It is like we are being served appetizers ahead of the main entrée. Being human tastes intentional, tastes personal and tastes relational, spiced with desire and yearning, all part of a spiritually shaped tray of choices that are presented in communal, political and economic structures.

In these areas there is an overriding awareness of being moral individuals concerned with good and evil, being right as opposed to wrong, when choices and decisions face us. It is here that our humanity finds itself internally and externally conflicted. The whole area of personal and interpersonal experience is invisible and riddled with conflict. There is bitterness in the appetizers. Behavior follows and is all that can be seen. Its motivation is unseen. One thing is clear. Humanity is broken.

Human beings are always looking for and relying on principles, concepts and ideas by which they can find guidance in the midst of their brokenness. They inevitably seek out a system or a person or a person with a system to follow. Again the whole process is invisible. It is this delving into the invisible, speculating, guessing, trusting and believing that exhibits our spiritual reality. The very fact that there is no agreement, no clear answers or conclusions in the realm of interpersonal and larger societal behavior shows the flawed reality underlying all personal consciousness.

The flaw is in our spiritual nature. The flaw is there and everyone knows the flaw is within. It is the kind of flaw that cannot be overcome from within because our within ‘ is flawed. It is the kind of flaw that needs to be identified. That flaw can only come from an objective source. That flaws needs revelation from outside the individual mind, heart and spirit. The Bible identifies it is as sin. Sin and its product evil, are the great divide in the unseen between that which is perfect and that which is isolating, alienating and finally destructive.

It is into this flawed depth that Jesus comes as the promised solution to the flaw and its effects---aloneness---its restless pursuits and the sin that flaws it. Jesus came to make sense out of what humanity finds impossible to be and that is secure, confident and perfect. He came to tell us who we really are, personal images of God thus restoring our identity. Offering the solution to our wandering aloneness, a personal relationship with Him and others. Giving us purpose, to bring His plan to reorder a lost world. He gives us the means through His relationship with us, following Him, learning from His Word and receiving the presence and benefits of His attributes. They reveal the other dimension in the unseen---perfection, personal and interpersonal perfection and a reality of unity in form, substance and structure called the Kingdom of God. Let’s look at a few of those attributes.

Jesus is spiritually focused.

The foundation of His revelation is spiritual. Creation is spiritually initiated. Everything comes out of the spiritual nature of God. God has presented the revelation of the source of everything in Jesus. Through Him everything came into being. Most significantly is the creation of human beings in His image. His humanity reveals His spiritual nature. It is the source of all humanity. The mind, the heart and the spirit in each human being are spiritually sourced. They are created in the image of God’s mind, heart and Spirit. God is Spirit. From motivation to action, all that He is and does is spiritual. Jesus, God the Son, came from the spiritual realm with a spiritual purpose, to bring the world and its people back into His spiritual focus. This is what Scripture means when it says, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.”

It follows then that all the character, person and individuality of Jesus are spiritually motivated. When we see Him as He has been revealed in Scripture His attributes show us the spiritual reality of the many facets of who He is. His attributes stand out. Let’s look at a few.

Jesus is perceptive.

His perception is spiritual. Maneuvering in the unseen it is His spirituality that rules. When we say the unseen we are talking about the unseen within as well as without. Within, our emotions, our thought process, the way we relate as we operate in the unseen, all of this is open to His Spirit knowing what is taking place in them. Without, ranges an atmosphere of spiritual beings, angels, evil spirits and demons. Apart from God we are victims of the darkness in that atmosphere. Without the light of God’s Son as our guide and without God’s Spirit we have no way to sort out our human experience all of which is processed in the unseen dimension of our mind, heart and spirit.

Being images of God, each of us has some of this ability. However it is flawed due to sin. Therefore its accuracy is limited. As Paul has said 1Cor.13, “We know in part, vs.9,…Now we see through a glass darkly…,” vs.12. At times we can sense the motivation, the emotional state or the attitudes emitted as people relate to us. We might even sense things in the larger atmosphere about us but we never perceive them perfectly. This is why He has given us His Scripture to help us see in the spiritual dimension. Jesus knows both the personal and the larger atmosphere. He perceives all of it perfectly. He gives us His Spirit to bring His Word to our minds so the Spirit can help us work through the sin barrier into His light.

Take for example, when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4). This event clearly differentiates flawed human perception from perfect spiritual perception. External appearance and ethnic distinctives were her defensive techniques reflecting her flawed perception. ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” As He continued to speak to her she continued to throw up barriers. That was her lostness, her aloneness, her sin speaking, her limited sensing. Each of us know this condition personally.

Jesus’ perfect perception starts in a totally different place. He saw her internally, her defensive mind, her hurting heart and her lost spirit. He knew her in detail, inside and out. The Spirit in Him sensed her emotional condition, the depression, the resignation, the defensive shell she had built up over the years. He told her that she had been married five times and the man she was living with was not her husband. It was then she realized He knew more about her than she knew about herself. His spiritual insight was how He saw others. His insight was His outer sight, His perception, His perfect perception.

Throughout the Gospels Jesus shows His attitudinal perception is spiritual. Especially when the Pharisees attempt to find some flaw in His knowledge and He responds directly to the condition of their hearts. He knows their need for control. He knows their fear of losing religious, social and political control. Take the incidence of the woman caught in the act of adultery that the Pharisees brought before Jesus to get His reaction. They wanted to have her stoned. “Let Him who is without sin among you cast the first stone,” He said. No stones were thrown. They just walked away. He let them know He perceived the hypocrisy in their hearts. He could read their inner dynamics like a book. This is why He was such a threat not only to the local power structure but to every human being with this flawed nature.

When it came to His intellectual perception Scripture was the authority for thought with which the Spirit guided His mind. Note His reaction when He was questioned about the Resurrection and marriage. He simply responded that His questioners knew neither the Scripture nor the power of God, that marriage is for this world and that God is the God of the living not the dead. What His mind perceived was responded to Scripturally in the immediacy of the moment. What He demonstrated was that thinking, using one’s intellect Scripturally is the means to perceive spiritually. His was a perfect perception.

Here the full text of Paul’s Jesus-given insight comes as a distinct description of what a relationship with Jesus does. “9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (1Cor.13:9-12).”

Jesus is spontaneous.

His spontaneity is spiritual. In every situation of His life every next moment was met in complete confidence. He never had to ponder or say, “Let me think about that and get back to you.” At the wedding feast in Cana (John 2) when told the wine had run out, Jesus, without hesitation, instructed the servants to bring out six water jars full of water. Immediately He changed the water into wine.

When confronted unexpectedly by two demon possessed men (Matt.8:28) they pleaded with Him not to torture them. Immediately He spoke to the demons telling them to go. They went into a herd of pigs and fled into the water and drowned. He simply told the demons to leave. They did, in fear of Him.

No matter where He was or who was present, His actions, His teachings, His miracles and His manner were always spontaneous, no hesitation, no reluctance, no worrying about the outcome, no catering to public opinion, no compromise with the moment, no reacting based on social, religious or secular authority. Every next moment for Jesus was a spiritually spontaneous moment and His spontaneity, perfect.

Jesus is faithful.

To believe, to trust and to have faith that every next moment belongs to God was what Jesus exemplified. For Jesus the present moment was always the experience of following His Father’s will. There can be no doubt as to that perfection of attitude, emotion, reason and response when, His life on the line, His friends’ imminent desertion, a disciple’s betrayal and no one to support Him, He was left alone to die on the Cross. And die He did.

While He was dying He prayed for His enemies, His mother, His disciples, forgave His tormentors and lifted up all who would believe in Him. He mouthed the words of desertion we all feel and the words we all need to say trusting the Father’s will in that moment of death, “Why have you forsaken me? But not my will, your will be done.”

This was not faith in a system, a religion, a philosophy or being a self-proclaimed martyr. It was His perfect spiritual being perceiving in perfect faith through the perfect act of suffering for an imperfect humanity to bring it back to His perfect Father in the power of a perfect Spirit. Yes, a perfect faith.

Jesus prays.

To grasp the concept of perfect prayer is to take His teaching and model for prayer. The way He prays, His words and His manner, reveal the nature of perfect prayer. Let’s look at three examples.

First is His teaching on prayer, the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. In it are contained the One to whom we pray, the Father. Then what we are to pray for, spiritual sustenance for every next moment, that the Kingdom may come and forgiveness may be our companion. Being that the prayer comes through Jesus it is Jesus through whom we pray. That is the assurance of getting on the right track in the invisible since the invisible is the area exploited by sin and evil.

Second, the Great Prayer in John 17 in which He prays for three things, Himself, His disciples and then all who will believe in the future. It is a prayer that He may be glorified as an example of what is ahead for those who believe in Him. It is a prayer for unity with God and for His unity among believers. It is also a prayer for believers to be made whole through Scripture because as He prayed to His Father, “Sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth.”

Third, there is a brief overlooked example of Jesus’ prayer that summarizes an attitude to be embraced in prayer, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done (Mt.26:42).” We may pray for many things but God knows what is best in His personal perfect knowledge of each of us. To yield to Him regardless of circumstance is the key to Him restoring us to Him. Jesus’ standard of prayer? Perfect!

What does His perfection mean for us in this world? With Jesus in our minds and hearts, perfection is shaped in the figure of the Cross. Our eyes lifted to the Father and our activity reaching out to those in the world around us. That was Jesus on the Cross. That is the risen Jesus in us now. That is the posture He calls for us. Paul says it magnificently,

“16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2Cor.5:16-20).”